The new and the old will be uniting come Jan. 21 with the opening of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego’s expanded campus downtown , another potential boon to the booming urban core.
Designed by Richard Gluckman, a principal of the New York-based Gluckman Mayner Architects, the $25 million project includes the renovation of the 1915 Santa Fe Depot baggage building at 1100 Kettner Blvd., and a new modernistic three-story addition adjacent to it.
The 13,680-square-foot historic building is named in honor of San Diego philanthropists Joan and Irwin Jacobs, who founded San Diego-based wireless technology firm Qualcomm Inc. Offering four gallery spaces, the Jacobs Building also will feature an artist-in-residence studio.
The new 15,950-square-foot structure, called the Copley Building, features a 130-seat auditorium, a terrace offering harbor views, an education room and administrative offices.
The expansion, being done by Redwood City-based general contractor Rudolph & Sletten, will face the museum’s existing galleries at 1001 Kettner Blvd., and add 30,000 square feet of space, along with new outdoor exhibition locations. MCASD also has another location at 700 Prospect St. in La Jolla.
Creative Forces
The museum has commissioned permanent works by New York-based artists Richard Serra and Jenny Holzer, and San Diego-based Roman de Salvo, with temporary works by Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto and Richard Wright of Glasgow, Scotland.
“It’s fantastic the way the museum is engaging artists to do commissioned work for the new complex,” said Gluckman, whose earlier projects have included the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and Study Center in Santa Fe, N.M., the renovation of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. “On a square-foot basis, in San Diego, they are doing more per square foot than any other institution that I know of.”
Rachel Teagle, MCASD curator, expects the new facility will have a big impact on the area.
“We are hoping this will contribute to the cultural corridor,” she said. “We like to think this will be a real center for the arts growing in downtown San Diego.”
Victoria L. Hamilton, executive director of the city of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, also has high hopes for the new museum.
“It’s going to be a tremendous asset to the city and downtown,” she said.
Cultural Tourism
The museum expansion also is expected to stimulate cultural tourism to the city.
“We’re not only sand, surf and sun,” said Sal Giametta, spokesman for the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau, which actively markets the city’s cultural attractions.
Cultural tourists leave their mark, he said.
“They tend to stay longer and spend more money than the average visitor does, staying in a little more expensive hotels,” said Giametta. “They tend to have higher levels of discretionary income.”
In its 2005 report, the city of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture and the San Diego Regional Arts and Culture Coalition echoed that sentiment, noting that, in 2005, the 86 city-funded arts and culture organizations sold 1.6 million tickets and admissions to out-of-town visitors, who poured about $398 million back into the San Diego economy. This represented an increase of $29 million from the previous year, including hotel expenditures that directly impact transient occupancy tax revenues.
“If people are coming here for culture, and not just the zoo and SeaWorld, it gives people a broader view of San Diego, and will help the image of San Diego as an arts and culture city,” said Beverly Schroeder, a senior planner at the Centre City Development Corp., which oversees redevelopment in downtown for the city.
“The quality of what they are doing will bring a whole new vitality to that part of downtown,” she said. “A lot of people will want to be around that excitement.”
Big Plans
Another major advantage of the expansion is that now the museum will be able to accommodate large art installations that neither the La Jolla nor Kettner Boulevard locations could handle.
“We wanted to give artists large industrial-type spaces in which to work, so they can have executive world-class installations,” said Charles Castle, MCASD deputy director. “This is the type of space people are used to seeing in New York, and Europe and other major arts cities. We are very proud of the fact that we can offer a full palate of choices for artists to work. I don’t think there is anything like that in our part of the world.”
San Diego artist de Salvo is no stranger to large installations, having recently completed “Nexus Eucalyptus” , measuring 125 feet long and 50 feet wide , at the CalTrans District 11 headquarters in San Diego.
He has been commissioned to create a permanent work, budgeted for $30,000, in the stairwell of the Copley Building.
With a working title of “Modular Macrame,” his creation will consist of electrical conduits, boxes and connectors, materials normally concealed in a building, but, in this case, designed to provide both form and function.
“I’m a conceptual artist,” said de Salvo. “I get these ideas for ways to use familiar kinds of everyday things. I like to come up with new ideas for how to use those things, and get some amusement and entertainment out of them.”
Teagle expects that all of the artists exhibiting in the new space will be equally enthused.
“At the new building, there is a huge difference, with the quality of space and light, the historic feel, it makes it a very different kind of viewing and art experience,” she said. “It will be exciting for me to see how contemporary artists respond to the history and architecture of the building.”
Teagle also expects the new museum to benefit downtown’s small businesses, noting that there are no restaurants or cafes at the expanded museum.
“There are so many interesting options downtown already,” she said.
The Right Track
Situated between the Gaslamp Quarter, Little Italy and the San Diego Embarcadero, the downtown museum campus is located on regional commuter train and urban San Diego trolley routes, tapping into both sides of the border.
Castle is hoping that the new museum will inspire “art days” for aficionados.
“With the link to Tijuana via the trolley and Los Angeles via the train, you can see a show at MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) in L.A., and hop on the train and go to San Diego,” he said.
Gluckman agreed, saying that he is particularly impressed with the museum’s proximity to this transportation hub.
“You have a captive audience of daily visitors exposed to this institution,” he said. “That’s pretty unique.”
By not limiting the museum to a single location, such as La Jolla, MCASD also is making contemporary art available to a broader audience, Gluckman observed.
“They put their money where their mouth is, with satellite facilities that reach more of the community,” he said. “It’s not just about having a good building or good location. It takes a good institution and a good staff. This project has all of those ingredients. We’ve seen some projects flounder for lack of one of those components.”
The project is being funded largely through private donations, according to Castle.
“We are fortunate in that this project has been well received by donors,” he said. “It’s something they’re anxious to be involved in.”
Working with CCDC, the museum staff worked for years on the project , a labor that Castle is certain will bring major dividends to San Diego.
CCDC’s Schroeder, who worked on the project, agreed.
“We did have some rough spots with the design, in terms of how a contemporary building goes next to an historic structure,” she recalled. “People had different ideas. But the result of all of that is beautiful.”
